


Step in the Bright Lights

by iamtheenemy (Steph)



Series: Fools in Love [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining, Aziraphale is a theatre kid at heart, But also especially Aziraphale, Crowley hates everything, Except Aziraphale, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, pure silliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 08:20:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19741795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steph/pseuds/iamtheenemy
Summary: Crowley folded his long legs and slouched his body into a chair so uncomfortable that not even magic could fix it. Aziraphale was on the stage sitting straight-backed and prim, his hands neatly folded on top of the sheets of music on his lap. On one side of him sat a reedy girl in a pastel dress; on the other, a grubby-looking boy wearing a crooked blue tie and dirty white trainers along with his suit. Neither could be older than fifteen. Aziraphale’s smile was wide enough that some of the mothers in the crowd eyed him suspiciously.Objectively, rationally absurd, every single thing about this situation.Aziraphale picks up some new hobbies. Crowley has no chill.





	Step in the Bright Lights

**Author's Note:**

> Well. I can't believe I wrote this.

**1904**

When Aziraphale called Crowley and said he wanted to meet on a certain street corner in London, Crowley was expecting for the two of them to make another Arrangement. Beyond that, he knew it never took much persuading to convince Aziraphale into a spot of lunch. He never, in his wildest dreams - _nightmares_ \- thought he’d be walking into this. He would have taken another nap instead.

The angel was holding court on the walking path surrounded by a passel of small children and their bored parents. He wore an absolutely ridiculous magician’s costume, complete with a top hat, cape, black wand, and a painted on mustache above his upper lip that had Crowley recoiling in horror. On a table in front of Aziraphale was a sign that proclaimed: _THE AMAZING MISTER FELL AND HIS REMARKABLE FEATS OF PRESTIDIGITATION_.

He almost turned right around, but then Aziraphale spotted him and waved enthusiastically, stopping in the middle of a bit involving some handkerchiefs coming out of his sleeve to greet him.

“Oh, look, children! It’s the Amazing Mr. Fell’s very special assistant, Signor Crowley!”

The small crowd turned to stare at him, and Crowley remained impassive when he intoned, “Ciao.”

Aziraphale held out both arms and gasped theatrically, causing the children, the oldest of which could be no more than five, to jump as well. Crowley saw one mother hide a yawn behind her hand.

“Signor!” Aziraphale called out to him. “Signor, come quick! Why there’s something wrong!”

Crowley glared at him and shook his head, hand tightening on his cane.

“Children, do you see what’s there, behind his ears?” The children cried out in response, some saying yes, others saying no. “Signor, hurry!” Aziraphale beamed at him hopefully, arms still beckoning to him.

Crowley, cursing under his breath, found, not for the first time, that he had no defence against the sheer heavenly force of that smile. He shuffled up to Aziraphale’s table, head held high, and made sure to let his annoyance show on his face.

With a flourish, Aziraphale dramatically reached behind Crowley’s ear and pretended to pull out a sixpence coin. He showed the crowd, and the children cheered. Then he reached behind Crowley’s other ear and, after ruining the illusion by taking too much time to wiggle it out of his sleeve, produced a small, red flower.

“Why, Signor Crowley, you should always remember to clean behind your ears!” Aziraphale admonished.

The children laughed and the adults clapped politely, but down the walk came a pair of men smoking cigars and speaking loudly enough for Crowley to hear.

“That ratbag is out here every week, performing parlour tricks for a bit of coin,” the first one said.

“Look at his face,” the second one added, “Looks like a drunkard to me.”

With a lazy flick of Crowley’s fingertips, both men mysteriously tripped over their own feet, landing in a thorny rose bush nearby with twin groans of pain.

“Oh my, I do hope they’re all right,” Aziraphale said.

If one wasn’t watching closely, and if one didn’t have every blessed inch of the angel’s face - every tick of his mouth and twitch of his eye - categorized and stored in one’s mind after 6000 years of careful study, it would have been easy to miss the barely perceptible upturn of Aziraphale’s lips. It didn’t, however, take an expert to realize that he did nothing to help those men, ethereal or otherwise.

“Now, where were we?” Aziraphale asked, turning back to the children. “Ah, I remember!” Bending down, he approached a tiny girl wearing a stained and ill-fitting dress. “Here you are, little one.” He placed the sixpence into the palm of her hand and then tucked the flower behind her ear. “A gift from Signor Crowley.”

The girl wrapped her fingers tightly around the coin and said, “Oh, thank you, Mister! Thank you, Signor!” She ran back through the crowd to find her mother.

Aziraphale gave Crowley a sly glance out of the corner of his eye, along with a half-smile, and Crowley grimaced at him in return. Demons couldn’t be seen going around helping little mop-haired girls. That was a surefire way to drink a holy water cocktail. Hard to believe that in nearly 6000 years, the angel still hadn’t picked that up.

If Crowley needed to perform a bit of naughty miracling on the side, for the sake of the Arrangement and whatnot, he did it surreptitiously. Like, say, providing the girl’s father with another job since he’d lost his last one the previous month.

As a matter of fact, now he was thinking on it, might as well show Aziraphale how it was done. He sent the miracle out with a thought. Beside him, Aziraphale’s smile widened. Crowley pretended not to notice and vowed to set the record straight at the earliest convenience. He was just providing Aziraphale with a practical example of subtly in their craft so that the dense fool didn’t get them both discorporated one day.

“Shall we see if we can find that sneaky old Mr. Rabbit?” Aziraphale asked.

*

“What did you think?” Aziraphale asked later, when the crowd, such as it was, dispersed and he had miracled all of his props back to his shop. Unfortunately the mustache remained.

“Angel,” Crowley answered.

“Yes?” Aziraphale asked.

“I’m not addressing you,” Crowley said. “I’m reminding you that you’re an _angel_. What’s this sleight of hand rubbish?”

Aziraphale’s excited grin dimmed, and Crowley grit his teeth and refused to let himself take it back.

“It’s a hobby, I’ll have you know,” he said.

“A hobby?” Crowley repeated. “I thought reading was your hobby.”

“A man can have more than one interest, Crowley,” Aziraphale said primly. “And ever since Hardwell’s closed its doors, I’m feeling quite at loose ends.”

Crowley shook his head. “Hardwell’s?”

“I suppose it would be fine to tell you now that it’s sadly defunct. For quite a few years, during your...errr...rest...I was a member of a discreet gentlemen’s club -”

“Sorry?” Crowley interrupted incredulously, feeling something fizzle and pop inside of his brain.

“Myself and the other gents, well. I suppose you could say we became friends,” Aziraphale continued.

“You suppose.”

“I’ve seen very few of them in the years since it closed, so it certainly puts into question whether that was really the case. The point being that I’m looking for other ways to occupy myself, now that I no longer have that to look forward to. And since the gavotte has fallen out of style,” Aziraphale added.

Either he was making very little sense or Crowley’s brain had actually stopped functioning. He could think of nothing to say.

“You didn’t like my act?” Aziraphale asked again. “I thought it went well.”

Crowley looked skyward, and then realizing he’d get no help there, turned back to Aziraphale. “The children seemed to enjoy it,” he said reluctantly, hating the infernal soft touch that the angel brought out of him.

“They did, didn’t they?” Aziraphale said, perking up. “I’m getting better with practice. Now, since I’ve pulled you all the way out here, what do you say to some lunch?”

Crowley gestured with the snakehead handle of his cane. “Lead the way.” As they walked, he sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose in disgust. “You smell like rabbit.”

Aziraphale started and then reached into his coat and pulled out the rabbit he’d been using earlier. It hopped placidly away.

“Whoops, nearly forgot.”

"And the bird," Crowley added.

"Thank you, dear."

*

Unfortunately, Aziraphale’s foray into magic was only the first of many attempts at finding the right distraction to help him pass the time to eternity.

He dragged Crowley into every one of them.

During the Second World War, he took up knitting. He made Crowley a winter hat that Crowley wore once, to appease him, and then carefully locked in a safe he kept hidden behind his plants.

In the winter of 1956, Aziraphale tried ice skating, which Crowley warned him would be a disaster. The angel’s human vessel wasn’t the most athletic of forms, but Aziraphale had some romantic notion about the whole thing in his head. Watching him wobble around on those skates that day was the highlight of Crowley’s decade.

Playing chess was a hobby they both enjoyed through most of the 1960s, until Crowley beat Aziraphale five times in a row between 1962 and 1968 and Aziraphale accused him of cheating. Which he had been, of course, but it was rude of Aziraphale to mention it.

For a hellish - and Crowley should know - week in the late 1970s, Aziraphale fancied himself a cook. Crowley was no food connoisseur, but he _was_ something of an expert on poison, having nudged along the inventions of several of them.

If Aziraphale’s attempt at beef bourguignon wasn’t already considered one, it should be. Crowley sat in a kitchen that hadn’t been in the back of Aziraphale’s bookshop the last time he’d visited, a few years prior. The stew bubbled in the bowl like a particularly melodramatic witch’s brew, and the meat looked very much the wrong colour.

With a smile forced around a grimace, Crowley ate three spoonfuls before Aziraphale joined him at the table and took a taste for himself.

“Oh, this is vile!” he declared. He dropped the spoon in the bowl with a resounding clang and a splash of inedible liquid. “I’m so sorry, Crowley. I’m sure I followed the recipe correctly this time.”

“It’s fine,” Crowley said, glad he didn’t have to endure anymore of it for Aziraphale’s company, while also refusing to acknowledge the fact that he would have choked down the whole bowl and probably asked for seconds just to avoid disappointing him. “Sushi?”

“Yes, please.”

*

**1984**

Crowley folded his long legs and slouched his body into a chair so uncomfortable that not even magic could fix it. Aziraphale was on the stage sitting straight-backed and prim, his hands neatly folded on top of the sheets of music on his lap. On one side of him sat a reedy girl in a pastel dress; on the other, a grubby-looking boy wearing a crooked blue tie and dirty white trainers along with his suit. Neither could be older than fifteen. Aziraphale’s smile was wide enough that some of the mothers in the crowd eyed him suspiciously.

Objectively, rationally absurd, every single thing about this situation.

They were welcomed to the spring concert by Mrs. Whittingham, the instructor, and then Aziraphale was the first performer called. He walked up with the sheets in hand and placed them on the music rack atop the black piano before giving the audience a wave.

“Hello. I know I’m quite a bit older than the other students,” he began, winning the award for the biggest understatement in the history of spoken language, “but I always say that you’re never too old to learn a new skill, eh? All right, well. Jolly good. I’ll just begin, shall I?”

*

  
**1997**

Crowley stood outside the stage door waiting. It was a brisk February evening, but temperature never affected Crowley. Impatience, on the other hand, was a different story.

Right as he was about to unlock the door and walk in, it opened and Aziraphale appeared. He scanned the area and then looked gratifyingly pleased and surprised when he spotted Crowley.

“Oh, hello!” he said. “You came! I thought you were stuck in Amsterdam this weekend.”

“Schedule cleared,” Crowley answered vaguely, meaning that he’d rushed through his Hell-mandated temptation and then nearly broke the sound barrier in order to get to the tiny, hole-in-the-wall theatre on time.

“Did you see the show?”

Crowley made a five-course meal out of rolling his eyes, with the knowledge that Aziraphale would know he was doing it even if he couldn’t see the action from behind Crowley’s glasses. “No, I stood in this alley in the cold for three hours. Of course I saw the show.”

“And?” Aziraphale prompted. “What did you think?”

What Crowley had been _thinking_ \- in his flat, in the Netherlands, in the Bentley on the way over - was about what he could have possibly done in his devilish life - apart from the obvious - that lead him here, desperate to watch Aziraphale headline the worst performance of bloody Hamlet that he’d ever seen.

“That I can’t believe people are still coming to see this tedious slog of a play,” Crowley hedged.

“And whose fault is that?” Aziraphale asked. His white hair was sticking up more riotously than usual, thanks to the wig he’d worn during the show. There was a smudge of stage make-up still on his neck.

“Just living up to my part of the Arrangement,” Crowley muttered, trying not to stare. He thrust the bouquet of flowers he’d brought at the angel’s chest. One of the rose blossoms was drooping, but it straightened after a good glare from Crowley. He had made his expectations for them all very clear on the ride over.

Aziraphale’s face opened up more beautifully than any flower. He took the bouquet and grinned. “How kind of you, Crowley.”

“Yeah, yeah, no need for insults,” he said, clasping his hands safely behind his back.

“Mr. Fell?”

They both turned to see a woman wearing a dark suit and sensible heels walking towards them.

“Yes?” Aziraphale asked.

The woman held out her hand for Aziraphale shake. He shifted the roses into his other hand and returned it.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Mr. Fell, my name is Lydia Monroe. I’m an arts and culture writer for the London Journal. I’ll be reviewing this production to run in tomorrow’s paper. I was wondering if I could get some quotes from you about the show for my piece,” she said.

“Of course,” Aziraphale said. “But if you don’t mind my asking: would you be willing to give me a little taste of what to expect from your review?”

With his hands hidden behind his back, it was easy for Crowley to move unnoticed.

“Top line?” she asked with an apologetic look. “I loved it.” She then appeared to try and stare down at her own mouth in shock.

“Oh, really?” Aziraphale asked.

“Uh huh,” she said, sounding strangled. “Never have I seen Hamlet brought to life more…” Her eyes flitted back and forth as she searched for a word, “... _jovially_.”

“I like to think I bring my own _joie de vivre_ to the role,” he beamed.

“Mm hm,” she said and coughed twice. “Actually, if you’ll excuse me, I just remembered that I have somewhere else to be.”

“Do take care!” Aziraphale called after her as she wandered back the way she came. “She seemed nice.”

“Yup,” Crowley agreed. And she would keep seeming nice if she knew what was good for her. “Drinks?”

“Don’t mind if I do!”

*

**2006**

The worst part. The very worst part - and yes, somehow, amidst all of the horror unraveling in front of Crowley, there was, in fact, a _worst_ part. The very worst part was that Crowley _invented improv_. The idea came to him on one of his darker, more nihilistic days, and he’d been proud of the whole endeavour until this moment.

Once again, hoisted by his own petard.

For the first time, he wished those Y2K conspiracy people had been right. Burn the whole world down. Crowley would do it on his own. Who needed the Great Plan? Toss him a match.

“Someone shout out the name of a person, place, or thing.”

Aziraphale stood on a makeshift stage surrounded by the six other members of his troupe. They all wore matching black shirts with white writing that said _Think Fast!_ in comic sans font, also one of Crowley’s ideas. Aziraphale’s bow tie peeked out from under his collar, which meant that his only concession to the dress code was removing his coat and vest and pulling that shirt on over everything else.

Crowley hated himself for finding that charming. He hated everything.

There were about three dozen people sitting in the small pub, and most of them were having conversations amongst themselves.

“Come on now,” Aziraphale repeated into his microphone. “Person, place, or thing. First one that pops into your head.”

Crowley took a sip from his scotch and watched as the customers continued to ignore him.

“Cats got all your tongues, I see,” Aziraphale said with an awkward laugh. “Don’t be shy.”

A man sitting in the back with a woman on a first date shouted, “My bollocks!”

There were a few titters through the crowd.

The man, apparently very proud of his joke and trying to impress his date, repeated, “I said, my bollocks!”

With a snap of his fingers, Crowley made it so that each of his credit cards would be declined when he tried to pay. Then he flattened a tyre on his car for good measure.

“Well,” Aziraphale said to the man, looking flustered and disapproving, “that’s very crude. There could be kids here, sir.” He seemed to remember belatedly that he was in a pub, and said, “Or, I suppose there couldn’t be, this time, but it’s still unacceptable to - “

“Apple,” Crowley called out, cutting off Aziraphale’s lecture. He knocked back the rest of his drink.

“I heard ‘apple’!” Aziraphale said eagerly. The look of unabashed gratitude and fondness he sent Crowley’s way made him wish he hadn’t finished that scotch so quickly, because the alcohol went straight to his head. Then he wished he had _more_ scotch and immediately made it happen.

On stage, one of the troupe members was pretending to be a tree. Aziraphale mimed plucking an apple from one of its branches and said to another member, “Might I tempt you to take a bite?”

Crowley snorted and then did the unthinkable. He laughed.

*

**The first day of the rest of their lives**

“To the world.”

“To the world.”

They clinked glasses and Crowley took a sip from his champagne. It was the best thing he’d ever tasted.

“So,” he asked. “What will you do next? A new hobby, perhaps? You could always crawl into the 21st century, nearly two full decades in,” he suggested. “I could teach you the internet. Or get you a DVD player. Well. First a television, then a DVD player. Or maybe you could try the cinema. Things have changed considerably since they added sound.” He took a moment to imagine Aziraphale watching a 3-D film with the little paper glasses - both inventions which were Crowley’s doing.

“Whatever for, my dear?” Aziraphale asked.

“Then what?” Crowley persisted. It would be nice to know what fresh torments awaited him. “Back to acting?”

“We’re both aware that I am a terrible actor,” Aziraphale said.

“I seem to recall you getting good reviews,” Crowley replied.

Aziraphale pinned him with a pointed look and a rise of his eyebrow. “Yes, I always did, didn’t I?”

“Err…” Crowley said.

“Anyhow,” Aziraphale continued, “I don’t think I’ll need anymore hobbies going forward.”

“How do you mean?” Crowley asked. “You’re going to have more free time than ever.”

“Well, yes, but you’ll be staying now, won’t you? I’ll get to see you whenever I’d like?” Aziraphale asked.

There hadn’t been a single moment since the seventh day of the Earth’s existence that Aziraphale couldn’t have seen Crowley whenever he’d liked. Instead of saying any of that, though, Crowley nodded.

“Then there you are. You’ll be my hobby from now on.” Aziraphale grinned again, that bright, beaming, glowing one that had had a vice grip around Crowley’s heart for the last 6000 years. “If that’s all right with you, obviously.”

Crowley took another sip of champagne to compose himself and hide his own grin. Then it occurred to him that he probably didn’t need to anymore, and he let Aziraphale see it, two lunatics smiling wildly at one another.

“Obviously,” he agreed.

**Author's Note:**

> Consider this blanket permission to use this story for any remix, podfic, translation, fanart or other transformative work you'd like, but please inform me, credit me and provide me any links so that I can include it in the notes. 
> 
> Join me on tumblr @ [theres-a-goldensky](https://theres-a-goldensky.tumblr.com)!


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